


all we are (is burning)

by daughterofrohan



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, also angst, but maybe don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled, but that goes without saying, mild spoilers for captain america: civil war, so use your best judgment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:03:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofrohan/pseuds/daughterofrohan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're still friends, right?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	all we are (is burning)

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](http://natrasharomanova.tumblr.com/post/126776350934/all-we-are-is-burning). (also come say hi.)

It’s exactly twenty-seven minutes past midnight when she comes. (But he hasn’t been expecting her and he certainly hasn’t been counting the minutes with bated breath.) She arrives as silently as she ever does, slipping through his window like the shadows she’s spent her whole life hiding in. The moonlight illuminates her eyes briefly and he sees that there’s no menace in them. Whatever her intentions are, she’s here for a reason besides the fight, and she hasn’t brought the Black Widow with her. Here, under cover of darkness, in a stolen moment that almost seems to exist outside of time, she’s no one but Natasha. His Natasha.

 _Not yours_ , he tells himself. _Not anymore._

He sees her register that he’s awake, sees the conflict in the lines of her body as she decides what to do with this newly acquired information, sees the moment when she disregards whatever orders she may have and crosses the room swiftly, sliding into bed next to him like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

She lifts a hand slowly, fingers gently tracing the bruise that’s begun to blossom across his cheekbone, left there by her own hand, before coming to rest on his lips. He wants nothing more than to savour the moment in blissful ignorance but there’s something he needs to know. “Can you stay?”

She shakes her head sadly, and then her fingers are replaced by her mouth, soft and warm against his. He crushes her to him tightly because every chance might be the last chance he ever gets to touch her, to hold her, to tell her the words they so seldom say even though they’ve known the truth for years.

He pulls her into a hug when her mouth slides off of his and she leans her head against his shoulder and they stay there in the dark, holding each other, desperate as the world has forced them to be.

“I’m tired, Clint,” she murmurs into his chest, and he knows she doesn’t mean physically.

He presses his lips to her hair. “I know.”

She looks up at him then, and her eyes are older and more full of sadness than he thinks he’s ever seen them. He feels her pain tear through him as acutely as if it’s his own. “I don’t want to fight against you anymore,” she whispers.

“Don’t,” he says, and for the first time in his life he wishes he believed in the god of his mother so he could pray for a miracle.

She shakes her head again as a single tear trails down her face, and he reaches up to brush it away with a heart-wrenching tenderness. “I didn’t want this,” she chokes out.

“Hey,” he says, echoing her words from their fight earlier. “We’re still friends, right?”

She laughs shakily even as her tears continue to spill over. “Yeah. We’re still friends.”


End file.
